


Fractured Humanity

by ChestnutPatronus14



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-22
Updated: 2016-06-05
Packaged: 2018-06-10 00:19:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6930355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChestnutPatronus14/pseuds/ChestnutPatronus14
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The world ended the day that it tried to restore balance, reviving an old foe to do so.  Ultron has been in control of Earth for the past 100 years, and were it not for a failsafe designed by Tony Stark, the Avengers would be lost. For 100 years, Steve Rogers has led the rebellion against Ultron, and he has been trying desperately to revive Bucky from the cryo container he was placed in.  With each passing day, a bit more of Steve's humanity disappears, his heart growing cold, his faith in humanity disappearing. When Bucky finally wakes up, he is met by a shadow of the man he trusts more than anyone else, and must do what he can to restore Steve's faith in humanity or risk losing not only Captain America, but the world as well.</p><p> </p><p>Based upon <a href="https://the-mini-muse.tumblr.com/post/144233996671/stucky-story-idea-42-ultron-survivedcap3">the-mini-muse's prompt.</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The main characters for this fanfiction are Bucky and Steve, but that does not mean that they will always be the focus of the story, some chapters may have sections from other characters points of view, including Bruce Banner, and Tony Stark.

“It’s the safest option, we don’t know where the book is, and with them still in my head there is no telling what could happen…”

“We’ll find a way to get them out of there Buck, and we’ll bring you home.”

“I know you will Steve.”Bucky Barnes leaned back against the metal table, his head on the black pillow.He looked towards Steve again, giving him a bit of a smirk.“Till the end of the line punk, remember?”He closed his eyes as the glass was lowered.A flip of a switch, and the Winter Soldier was once again placed into cryo, something that his body had become so familiar with that it welcomed it as if it was an old friend.

**——Fifteen Years Later——**

It was with a harsh gasp that Steve Rogers opened his eyes and took his first breath in two months, though the passage of time had simply slipped away from his mind as he slept.It was with panicked eyes that he looked around a room that held what seemed to be a bunch of different-They were cryo containers, exactly like the one one that Bucky had been placed into. 

No, this was not right.What had-

Steve closed his eyes, trying to think back to what he could remember.It was fragmented images that seemed far too jumbled to make much sense to him.Images of people running, fire and explosions that were so similar to the war he had first served in, and others.A man who ran far faster than the rest, looking as if a blue streak, and a silver figure- _You cannot stop me this time Captain, the world needs me.It is out of balance and I alone will bring it peace.The world needs to be cleansed and you won’t stop me this time._

Ultron.It had been Ultron, but where was he?Why was he in this room full of tubes and why couldn’t he move?

He flexed his muscles, then yanked hard on his arms, the restraints buckling against his effort first his arms, and then his legs.His feet hit the floor with a soft thud, and Steve rubbed at his wrists as he went over towards one of the tubes.There was a thin layer of frost on the outside of the tube, and Steve wiped it away with a single swipe of his hand, and felt his stomach lurch.

There behind the glass was Bruce Banner, his eyes closed, his face unshaven, dark hair longer than he had seen it in a while. The man’s skin looked green in a way that was enough to terrify the super soldier. That wasn’t right, Bruce wouldn’t have agreed to that, he wouldn’t have without knowing the risks of being in cryo and the impact the gamma radiation would have had one him.He moved to the next, and the next.With each swipe of his hand, he found another member of his team.All of them.Clint, Sam, Wanda, Bucky, Scott and others who he had not expected to see, like Tony, the kid who had worn the Spiderman suit, James Rhodes, Tony Stark, Natasha Romanoff.

“Captain Rogers.”Steve turned with wide eyes to look at Vision, the-well Steve was not entirely sure what he was, dressed as he had before everything had gone to hell at the UN meeting.“You’re awake.”

“Of course I am.Vision what is going on?Why is everyone in here?”

“For their protection.”What Steve could only describe as a look of confusion crossed Vision’s features.“And it was for yours as well, I do not understand how you are awake.Mr. Stark left clear-“

“This was Tony’s doing?”The anger surged through him, his eyes darting over towards the cryo container where he knew the other man was. Tony Stark had done this to them?Why the hell had he done such a thing?“And what was his plan huh? Wake us up when-when what? The world was suddenly a nice place to be? Were we too big of a threat?”

“Captain, how much do you remember from before you were placed in the cryo-stasis?”

“I remember all of it.”

“Do you?”

“Yes I-“Steve paused, his brows furrowed slightly.“No.I don’t remember all of it.I know that Ultron had returned, that he told me there was no way to stop him, the world was out of balance and he was going to cleanse it.”

“Not everyone we knew survived that encounter Captain.”

And it came back to him in that moment, him and the others were there by Ultron, held back by the other machines keeping them in place.In Ultron’s hand was Sharon, his fist around her throat.She was struggling, kicking to get free, and there was nothing that he could do to get free and get to her to help. _There’s nothing you can do Captain.This world is mine._ His fist tightened, and blood began to come from Sharon’s mouth, a wet gasping sound coming from her. _And this?This is what will become of you and your friends._ His hand closed suddenly and with enough force that it severed her head from her body.It rolled, her eyes still open, over towards Steve and stared up at him.

“We returned to Wakanda after he…We came back and then-“

“Mr. Stark created a failsafe to protect you and the other Avengers.Only those who cannot die were not placed into cryo, Captain, such as myself, Thor, and Mr. Wilson.”Vision moved checking the vitals on Tony’s panel to make sure that he was still alive.“Ultron has taken over the world Captain, he is cleansing it one country at a time.There are those fighting, those who know what he is doing is wrong.”

“Vision why am I awake and they’re still asleep?”

“From what I can conclude it is a result of your serum.Your metabolism functions at a rate that is different from a normal human.When you woke up, the capsule opened and allowed you to begin to function normally once more.”

Steve had started to move while the other spoke, from the room and out into the large circular area.It wasn’t Wakanda, it didn’t feel as if it was hot enough if he was entirely honest.It felt cold.“Vision where are we?”

“Siberia sir, underground.”

Steve shook his head, running his fingers through his short blonde hair.They were in an old HYDRA base, that much he was certain, and he had a very distinct feeling he knew which one it was.If it was deep enough underground that he could not see any sunlight, he had a very bad feeling that he knew which base it was: the one where the Winter Soldier was created.

“Vision…tell me, what’s the damage?”

**——Eighty-Five Years Later——**

“Welcome back Barnes.”

Bucky blinked bleary eyed up towards the figure who had spoken, recognizing the voice though not enough to know who it was who had spoken to him.After a moment, he recognized the features of Clint Barton, the only other person who he’d consider to be one hell of a good shot.Bucky pushed himself up into a sitting position, and promptly paused, his eyes moving towards the new metallic left arm.The red star was gone, instead, replaced with Steve’s shield. 

“Where’s Steve?” Of course it was his first question, he would have bet money that it would have been him to be there when he opened his eyes.“How long was I under?”

“About…a century, give or take a day or two.”

That made-“A century?” He was on his feet in an instant, suddenly aware of everything.The stone walls of the room he was in, the lighting that was minimal just enough so that people could see it would seem. How could it was. 

“Hey take it easy, you ain’t the only one to get to go through this crazy circus ride and wake up to a new world.”

“Where is Steve?” Bucky demanded again, spotting the shirt and vest on the table, quickly pulling both articles of clothing on, replacing the tank top that he had gone under in. 

“He’s out on a mission.”Bucky whirled, grabbing Clint by the collar of his shirt and shoving him up against the wall.“Lot’s changed since you were last awake Barnes.This ain’t a conversation that you should have with me, but with him when he gets back.”

It was not the answer he wanted, and it was starting to get extremely frustrating for him.He let go of his shirt and moved to leave the room, determined to find out more than he was being told, but what he saw beyond that door stopped him dead in his tracks.

The building was one he knew intimately well, and it made him feel sick to his stomach.It was the base where they had broken him, turned him into the Winter Soldier.The one he had been at with Steve was the secondary one, this?This was the main location.He knew each turn, each room, and it did not matter that it had appeared to be redone top to bottom, this was a place that he would never forget.

Clint Barton was saying something to him, but the words did not reach his ears as he moved down the hall pushing people out of his way.He had to get out of there.This was some sort of sick dream. He wasn’t free, he had woken up and HYDRA had him again and there was nothing he could do to get out of there fast enough.Each moment he stayed there it felt like his chest was getting tighter, constricting his heart and lungs to the point where he could not breathe.

The door was in front of him, and all he had to do was get over to it and-

“You cannot leave Soldier.”

Bucky stared at Natasha, his hands clenching into fists.“Either get out of my way, or I will make you.” 

“No one is allowed to leave without permission.”

“Last chance Romanova.” 

“Bucky.”The name stopped him in his tracks, the voice so familiar to him that at one point in time, it had drawn him out of the shadow of the Winter Soldier and back into the reality that he had been so far away from.Bucky looked over his shoulder and saw Steve, and for a moment, his heart soared.Then he saw the look in his eyes, one that he recognized as if it was a faded memory.That thousand yard stare of a man who had seen far too much, and would never forget any of it.

His hair was still nicely kept, his face clean shaven, and rather than the uniform of Captain America he had grown used to, it looked more like he had stepped out of World War Two.By his side was a man who he remembered as Scott Lang, and on the other was Sam Wilson.It looked as if they were following a General, and Bucky had no way of knowing just how right he was.

Everything had changed, and with each year that passed without the others, Steve’s heart had grown colder.He had to do what he had to in order to survive and keep the others alive.One by one he brought them out of Cryo, and the first thing he did when he had seen Tony Stark again was slug him.Yet the one that Steve had wanted, had needed most of all by his side was the one who they could not seem to wake up, and that was Bucky.

Bucky took a step forward, and then another until he was standing right in front of Steve, looking up towards him he felt incredibly small.He opened his mouth to say something, only to have Steve put an arm around him and hug him tight.“Steve what’s going on?” he asked in a soft voice.

“The end of the world.”


	2. Chapter 2

“What did the doc say?”

Bruce Banner looked up towards Clint and offered him a sort of half smile.He had been the second brought out of cryo, done so in a panic when Tony had seen just how green his skin had become over the years, and the damaging effects had been something that none could have predicted.No one had seen the other guy since he had woken up, there had been no sudden transformation.The only currently lingering feature was the startling green eyes.

Clint took a seat across from him, adjusting the hearing aid in his ear, hopefully so that he would be better able to hear the other man.“That they have no idea why despite the situations I’ve put myself in, the other guy won’t come out.”Either Hulk was gone, or there was something far worse brewing deep within himself, and he really did not wish to find out what that was.The eyes seemed to be the only significant change, at least in him.Bruce could see the problems in others, what being in cryo for so long had done to them, Clint’s hearing probably was the most significant, at least for Bruce.

His eyes were drawn to movement towards the other end of the mess hall where Steve had just walked in with Bucky close by.“How is he adjusting?”

“Steve or Bucky?”

“Bucky.”

“He had it easier than us if you could say that, he’s used to cryo and was able to snap back to normal pretty fast but…”But the world itself had changed, and they were living in a place that probably held a lot of negative memories for the man in question, but Clint and Bruce realized that.The world above where they were located was bare and desolate.Those humans still alive were the ones deemed worthy by Ultron, those who willingly, though there was some debate as to how true that was, followed the being that now ruled the earth.Those who sided with them were few, most who had during the first part of Ultron’s reign had died or been publicly executed.

Their group was a hodgepodge mix of former SHIELD members decedents, decedents of those humans who had originally fought against Ultron, survivors who wanted to fight against him, and of course the Avengers.There were children who they tried to get to quickly to prevent them from being brain washed into the same cult like fanaticism that Ultron’s followers did.There were the mutants who had developed their own underground network after the destruction of Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters, and the Asgardians who had followed Thor.

Bruce offered the small tin cup of coffee to Clint, who shook his head.“I have first shift tomorrow, means I have to wake up early.”

“Whose going out with you?”The worry that suddenly gripped Bruce was something he had not felt since Betty, someone who he had long accepted he would never see again.He had grown used to the solitary life, though he had in the past several weeks enjoyed spending time with Clint.He knew how rapidly the other’s hearing was deteriorating, and the idea of Clint going out alone was not something that sat well with him.

“Parker and Wilson.”The kid and the mad man, just his luck.Not that Parker could really be considered a teenager anymore, but he was still the youngest out of the originals who had been placed into cryo.“I wish it was me going with you.”

“I’ll be fine Freckles, always seem to make it back don’t I?”

“You better come back Cupid.”

* * *

“You have got to be kidding me.”  Bucky was leaning against the nearby wall, the room had several other individuals in it, Tony Stark, Clint Barton, Bruce Banner, Sam Wilson and Scott Lang in addition to Steve.  Others who he knew were about, including Natasha, were out performing other duties.  What he had wanted more than anything, right then, was to throw a punch at Tony Stark and his stupid perfect face and make him regret what he had just been told.  “You are telling me that in order to keep everyone else safe you injected them with the serum used on Steve and I?”

“That is what I said wasn’t it? Only way to keep you all a-“

“You used a serum that turned him into a super soldier who cannot age and me into someone who cannot age, and used it on everyone without knowing the side effects?”

“The side effects are right in front of us.”

“That serum doesn’t work on everyone Stark!” Bucky was beyond furious at the arrogance of Anthony Stark.He thought Howard was bad in the short time he had known him, but this?This was insanity.He had seen the side effects of the serum, had watched as those who had volunteered for it in HYDRA had either survived with horrific impacts on their minds, or died as a result of the process.Some had it worse, some had physical changes that made it cruel for them to be kept alive.Bucky knew, he had been the one to put them out of their misery one person at a time.The other five were…were different.

By the fifth, they had mastered the process, had gotten to the point where they could reproduce the Soldier.Alexi Shostakov, Red Guardian, had been one of the few who had been a part of the project, but was not considered a Winter Soldier.There was himself, the five Soldiers, and then the Red Guardian, or so he had been told.

Bucky looked around the room at the others, and his eyes fixed on Bruce Banner and those shockingly green eyes.“You, you become the Hulk yeah?”

Bruce nodded, and Bucky watched as Clint seemed to shift just a bit closer to him.

“When was the last time that that happened?I’d bet not since Sokovia, and certainly not since Stark woke you up.”

The room was silent.

“Radiation impacts the serum, I know. I saw it.I may have been the first it was used on in HYDRA, but I saw the effects of the early trials.I would be my right arm that you won’t ever turn into the Hulk again Banner, but he is still there, he’s become something else, a more significant part of you that will be more difficult to control. You’ll become a real Jekyll and Hyde, Banner.”

Tony scoffed rolling his eyes in a way that made Bucky want to punch that stupid smirk off of his face. “Like you could possibly know that.”

“HYDRA tried it when gamma radiation became something worth looking into.The result wasn’t pleasant, I wasn’t just their assassin Stark, I was their executioner.”He remembered that day, the man strapped to a poll, those violently green eyes fixed on him.The ramblings of a mad man, the threats of what he would do if he got free, how he’d rip Bucky in half.How he had raised the gun and fired it not once, but six times because the man would not die.“They put on a show for those involved in the project, every failed experiment I took care of. I know the effects.”

No one spoke.

“You are the most reckless individual I have ever met Stark.”

“Don’t you dare pretend to judge me Barnes.” Anger seemed to flare in Tony’s voice.“There were decisions to be made and I had little time.If I had not done hat I had then more than just one-“

“One what?”

“More than one of us would have died.”

The sentence hung in the air with the weight of his words, and Bucky felt his stomach twist into an uncomfortable knot formed in his stomach.Someone had died while in cryo.Was it someone who he knew?Was it someone that had helped him when the world had wanted him dead? Bucky shook his head pushing away from the wall he had been leaning against, moving away from the rest of the group.He wanted nothing more to do with them, at least for the moment.

He was angry.They didn’t need an angry man, they needed a calm and collected soldier.

They needed the Winter Soldier.

“Longing, rusted, seventeen, daybreak, furnace, nine, benign, homecoming, one, freight car,” he muttered under his breath.Nothing.It did not work if he spoke the words.It only worked if someone else did.Maybe it would be easier if he was the Winter Soldier.At least then they could stop him from punching Tony Stark in his stupid perfect face.


End file.
